Pseudopod 053: The Apple Tree Man

[Bdoomed]

Pseudopod 053: The Apple Tree Man


By Joel Arnold
Read by Ben Phillips

I hope my son doesn’t notice how fidgety I’ve become. I want him to live a normal life. I want him to grow up healthy. Isn’t that the hope of every father?

He takes a bite and I hear the squish of his teeth in the apple’s pulp. As the nausea builds in me, the world swivels on one big spindle, and I can’t help but turn to look.

His face is covered with blood.

He takes another bite and I feel the world falling out from under me.

More blood spurts from the apple, splattering his chin, his neck, drenching his yellow tee-shirt with it.

He looks up at me. Smiling. Chewing.


Listen to this week's Pseudopod.

[eytanz]

I really enjoyed this story. It took turns that I really didn't expect, and the ending was perfect. I was anticipating a supernatural horror story, but the psychological horror was extremely chilling and well done.

It seems to be fruit-themed horror week here at Pseduopod, no?

[darusha]

That was great!  The lack of supernatural forces always makes scary stories way scarier for me - more please!

On another note, I'm starting to find the audio quality of Pseudopod's intros actively problematic.  I'm not an audio snob, but the contrast between the intros and the stories makes for a difficult audio experience. 

[robertmarkbram]

Ben Phillips reads with such a sonorous cadence that it enhances the chilling sense of inevitability that imbues this story. At first, I was thinking it was going to be like a Stephen King story, perhaps with some supernatural Apple Man or maybe Hinch coming back from the dead.

From the moment Ben Phillips read "I'm coming down there, I'll be there tomorrow" I felt the first twinge.

I find a tenous link of logic between this story and Brothers. In both stories, there is a somewhat dispassionate chain of logic whose conclusion is a simple "you must die". There is no anger or hate. In Brothers it was the golem's interpretation of the order he was given at creation time. In this story, it is the enforcement of a promise.

Of course there is plenty of emotion behind our protagonist's enforcement of his promise in this story: he is somehow trying to protect himself and his family, driven by guilt. But the way the story is played out, his actions seem so calm, dispassionate.. inevitable.

Joel Arnold uses apples as a focus for the story, something to hang the horrific imagry and delusions upon that evoke the sense of mad guilt that brings this story together. Initially I suspected that innocuous icon as being the real horror - like a car in Christine. Very nicely it turned into a different story, where the horror is trying to work out how someone could really act like that.

Well done Joel Arnold and Ben Phillips - encore! This one has appeal.

[eytanz]

Of course there is plenty of emotion behind our protagonist's enforcement of his promise in this story: he is somehow trying to protect himself and his family, driven by guilt. But the way the story is played out, his actions seem so calm, dispassionate.. inevitable.

Part of what made the story so effective for me is how acutely irrational the protagonist's actions are - he sincerely believes that he is protecting his family, but honestly - he isn't, not really. He didn't commit the murder, he was just an accessory after the fact, and he was not only a minor but a really young kid - he wasn't actually facing any risk of jail time or anything, and if he just talked his friend who committed the murder - the first to want to confess - to also say he buried the body - he could have been left out of it completely (I'm not saying that he would have succeeded in this, but he didn't even try). His own madness was such that he couldn't let the promise go, even though it wasn't really protecting him, it was protecting the friends he killed.

[Bdoomed]

i got chills as they were pegging the old man with the apples.

[Listener]

I really liked this episode a lot.  This is the kind of horror I love -- where it's only slightly supernatural, but the horror is more inside the person, and is caused by people, not by Beings.  (Though I also enjoy Being-based horror as well.)

I wasn't sure until near the end whether it would be a supernatural or "normal" horror story, and that was great.  It kept me going.

I also enjoyed Alistair's (sp?) introduction.  It really framed the story well, I thought.

On another note, I'm starting to find the audio quality of Pseudopod's intros actively problematic.  I'm not an audio snob, but the contrast between the intros and the stories makes for a difficult audio experience. 

I didn't really find it too troubling.  I realize that perhaps Alistair's setup isn't the same as Ben's, but I accept it as-is.  Besides, as long as it's not too static-y or garbled (which it isn't at all, IMO), I don't mind the quality changes so very much.

I was conflicted on Ben's reading.  I think he acted the characters well, and toward the end I was completely captivated by the reading, but during long narrative stretches, I got more a sense of "I'm bored and really have something else I need to be doing" rather than "impending doom, look out".  But then, that's just my opinion.

Overall, one of my favorite PPs.  I could see this story appearing in a Year's Best anthology as well.

[DKT]

Out of all the stories we've heard from Joel Arnold, this one is the best and will definitely stay with me the longest.  Ben's reading, as usual, was excellent. 

I'm also digging Alasdair's introductions.  It's different from Ben's, sure, and I do like Ben's.  But I like that Alasdair is doing his own thing, doing it comfortably, and not trying to be anyone else. 

[goatkeeper]

On another note, I'm starting to find the audio quality of Pseudopod's intros actively problematic.  I'm not an audio snob, but the contrast between the intros and the stories makes for a difficult audio experience. 

I HATE giving feedback like this, but I agree.  I think the intro-audio quality should be an easy but necessary fix.  I can get used to Alasdair's style but I think the change in production is very noticeable.

[Leon Kensington]

On another note, I'm starting to find the audio quality of Pseudopod's intros actively problematic.  I'm not an audio snob, but the contrast between the intros and the stories makes for a difficult audio experience. 

I HATE giving feedback like this, but I agree.  I think the intro-audio quality should be an easy but necessary fix.  I can get used to Alasdair's style but I think the change in production is very noticeable.

I have to agree with that statement.  I love the new intro format, but the audio is starting to get to me.

[Loz]

I even tried listening to this story at night while on holiday, rather than on my commute, which is where I normally listen, and I still didn't find it scary. I don't know, where am I going wrong? 

That said, I quite liked the story, though I felt it a bit rushed in the part explaining exactly why the narrator turns psycho and kills all his friends, has visual hallucinations and so on, I suppose that, just as you have Fantasyland cliches, a horror cliche is that you'll never seek psychiatric help for these conditions, just the address of the nearest well-stocked hardware store.

[Loz]

And yes, it helped that there wasn't some Jack Skellington-like Apple Tree Man tracking down and dispatching the teens one by one.

[twitcat]

I quite enjoyed this story.

Also, about a week and a half before hearing this, I actually met someone who had a phobia of apples. So far as I know it has no sinister background, but yeah, it's quite unusual and it surprised me to hear something like this on Pseudopod so soon after finding out about this unusual phobia.

[Listener]

I even tried listening to this story at night while on holiday, rather than on my commute, which is where I normally listen, and I still didn't find it scary. I don't know, where am I going wrong? 

That said, I quite liked the story, though I felt it a bit rushed in the part explaining exactly why the narrator turns psycho and kills all his friends, has visual hallucinations and so on, I suppose that, just as you have Fantasyland cliches, a horror cliche is that you'll never seek psychiatric help for these conditions, just the address of the nearest well-stocked hardware store.

Exactly.  I didn't find the story scary, though I thought it was good.

[eytanz]

I suppose that, just as you have Fantasyland cliches, a horror cliche is that you'll never seek psychiatric help for these conditions, just the address of the nearest well-stocked hardware store.

It could well be that 99% of the people who suffer from these conditions *do* seek help, even in horror land. They just don't get stories written about them...

[Bright Lies]

I never expect to be "scared" by these stories.  I only hope to end the story feeling supremely disturbed.  And after The Apple Tree Man, I was just that.   

After listening to this story for the second time, I've just realized how very little dialogue is used throughout.

Mr. Hench:  "You think this whole world's yours to do what you want with?"  "This whole world's your playground...?"

When I first heard this, I didn't think much of it.  Now, after listening while knowing the outcome of the story, I realized that they really did think they could do and get away with anything.  And years later, after the others had tried to face their past, Davey remained convinced that the whole world WAS his to do what he wants with.  I can only imagine what his personal life and marriage were like...  Davey was able to justify killing his own friends for what was really no good reason at all.  It'd originally escaped my attention that he hadn't even been the boy who'd KILLED Mr. Hench... but yeah, interesting how some can twist their own perception to justify anything.

That's what I found disturbing.  I wouldn't say "scary", but warmly disturbing.  This was a story that made me wonder what I myself would be capable of under such circumstances...  MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Thanks to all involved.  This will be one of the stories I direct first-time listeners to.   

[Unblinking]

This was a really good story.  the title made me think that it would be supernatural, and the apple throwing made me suspect it would be the good old Gypsy curse.  I was pleasantly surprised that it was neither.  The story really took a turn for me when he opened the hole in the present and there was already some other stuff down there, after that I figured out the rest pretty quickly.  It could've been trimmed a little bit, once we knew he was killing the others one by one the rest was pretty much obvious. 

I am a little bit surprised that his friends kept on confiding in him, but then I suppose when they've been separated so long they may not realize the others have disappeared.

[Millenium_King]

Eh.  A lukewarm reaction from me, closer to thumbs down than thumbs up.  This story felt disjointed and leapt all over the place.  The opening scene with the guy's kid felt out of place, the rest of it jumped around so much it was hard to follow.  I would have suggested just making the story about the narrator killing all those who might confess and backfilling the rest.  There was no need to tell it all in clumsy flashbacks.

Good reading.